A COUNCIL has been blamed for a man's fall into delinquency and crime which led to a life sentence in prison.

Marvin Pomfret, 23, won undisclosed High Court damages because Bolton Council failed to act on expert advice on how he should be educated.

His lawyers claimed the council failed to act on the advice to put Pomfret, who was a bright youngster at school, in a special residential school.

If his problems had been addressed, his escalation into delinquency and crime could have been avoided.

His lawyers would also have argued that the council owed a duty to all pupils to identify and treat special educational needs.

Pomfret spent most of his youth in care homes for social or judicial reasons. He committed more than 100 crimes as a teenager. He was given a life term for kidnap and other offences and has been behind bars for seven years.

In court

Pomfret appeared in court in Manchester handcuffed to a prison officer to hear settlement of his claim announced on Monday. He had been brought to court from Full Sutton high security jail, near York.

His counsel, Philip Engleman, announced that the parties had come to terms.

He told Mr Justice Simon that out-of-court talks had resulted in an order being agreed, but the damages figure "would remain confidential to the parties".

Outside court, a spokesman for his solicitors, Teacher Stern Selby, said Pomfret hoped to be released in the near future.

He had received educational help in custody and on release planned to do a degree in film studies.

"Marvin is a very impressive and bright young man with obvious potential in the film world," he said.

"He already has an Open University foundation degree in Humanities and on three occasions has been awarded the Kostler Prize for short story writing."